Completely sold out

– It is not so strange that people want to read books about Russia and Ukraine now – many want deeper knowledge to be able to understand the news picture better, says Erika Fatland, the author of “The Border”. A book that has now gained a new, great interest from book buyers.

Of the 14 neighboring countries to Russia, only Norway has never been at war with or occupied by Russia, so that says something about what it is like to have Russia as a neighbor, she says.

Two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the need for information is enormous. Norwegians will read about Putin, about Russia and Ukraine, and they will read Ukrainian authors.

This marks both publishers and bookstores. They report that books are being torn off the shelves and that new copies are being printed.

Both the Ark and Norli chains confirm that Hans-Wilhelm Steinfeld’s “Putin” is now sold out. The same is Peter Normann Waages «The shortest story about Russia».

Among the best-selling

Figures from the ongoing mammoth sale show that in the category “cinemas and memoirs”, Steinfeld’s analysis of the Russian president from his time as KGB agent in East Germany in 1989 until the book came in 2020 is the best-selling to date. While Halvor Tjønn’s “Russia is created” is the second best-selling in the category “History, politics, debate and society”, reports Anne Jorunn Skogøy, project manager for Mammutsalg in the Book Dealers’ Association.

Caroline Heitmann, marketing manager at the bookstore chain Norli, confirms the sharp increase.

– People need to acquire knowledge, they seek information. With us, these two books were among the best-selling non-fiction books – until they were sold out. Now there will be paperbacks in a short time, she says.

The man without a face

The need to understand more of Vladimir Putin has also sparked interest in the best-selling “Putin – the man without a face”, written by Russian / American author Masha Gessen in 2012. It currently tops the list of best-selling books about Russia and Ukraine in the Ark chain.

Elsebeth Danielsen, information manager for non-fiction in Gyldendal, thinks it may have something to do with the fact that there are not very many critical biographies of Putin out there.

“The goose credibly reveals how the bombs in the apartment blocks, the catastrophic hostage-takings in Beslan and the Dubrovka theater, the chaos around the Kursk shipwreck and a number of other atrocities can be directly linked to Putin’s authoritarian, vulgar and ruthless leadership of the country,” Dagbladet wrote. in his review.

– We had a small warehouse with a few hundred copies of the book that was taken out last week. We have now printed 4,000 new books coming in mid-March, says Danielsen.

Famine and stories from 1926

Tone Hansen, communications manager at Cappelen Damm, sees a suddenly growing interest in older titles. One of them is Anne Applebaum’s “Red Hunger” which deals with Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture, which ended up being the deadliest famine in European history.

Far older is Isak Babel’s “Stories from Odessa” from 1926. Now it is being reprinted, says press officer in October, Marte Nøklegård Dahl. Babel was born in Odessa, but moved to Russia as an adult and volunteered for the Communists during the Russian Civil War. Babel was later arrested and charged with espionage, tortured and executed in 1940.

In borderland

Erika Fatland’s “Border” from 2017, which depicts her journey around the fourteen countries bordering Russia, and looks at their relationship with their nearest neighbor, has thus received increased attention.

– I also write a lot about Ukraine and about the difficult, not to mention inflamed relations between Ukraine and Russia, Fatland says.

Erika Fatland’s dream turned into a two thousand mile journey

And when we talk about borders – in 2015 Morten Strand, who is a journalist in Dagbladet, came out with “Ukraine – the border country between East and West” where he tells the history of Ukraine from more than 1000 years back to the situation the country was in for seven years ago. This is now printed in the pocket.

– There is a craving in the population for information to try to understand the unreal thing that has happened, Strand says.

There is also a craving out there for reading books by Ukrainian authors. “Anarchy in the UKR” (2017) by Serhij Zjadan and “Death and the Penguin” (1996) by Andrej Kurkov are taken off the bookshelves.

And then there is another genre that has gained momentum: the crisis and emergency preparedness books.

«In case of doomsday» (2019) by Egil Aslak Aursand Hagerup, «Beredskapshagen» (2021) by Maria Nordum, and «Postapokalypse now! – handbook in survival »by Anne Linn and Andreas Kumano-Ensby who came last year, is gaining more and more readers.

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